Is there a cure for homophobia? Introducing Lovelace......

[eider]

It's a slur, nothing more.

Are you saying that you are not a homophobe?

[eider]

Unfortunately the four gospel accounts are contradictory.

Wildly...........

Do you imagine that auxiliary Roman soldiers were posted at the city gates?

Ha ha!
Whilst Idumea, Judea and Samaria would have had more Roman troops than other provinces, the rest of the Palestinian provinces were run by client rulers, Antipas running Perea and Galilee, Philip (and their sister?) running more Northern territories and the Ten-cities region, and they would have deployed their own troops as necessary.

I reckon that most of the Romans in Galilee were holiday makers at places like Tiberias, etc, but that is it. If you've got info about this angle please give it. Much needed.

Please excuse me for fragmenting your post ......... I'm getting sensitive about doing that after reading some member's comments.

[CivilDiscourse]

OK..... I want to pass the judgement about what does matter over to you.
Would you tell me what does matter in connection to this thread, please?
Let's take it from there......

If your confused duck, and other natural examples did not exist, would youropinion on LGBT people change?

Does the fact that, in nature, many males abandon thier young change your opinion of men who abandon thier families?

[rogue06]

Unfortunately the four gospel accounts are contradictory.

Mark and Matthew inform us that the entire body of the Sanhedrin all seventy one members according to the Mishnah was already assembled in the house of the high priest, at night, and on Passover night of all nights. Not only is the council is present but a collection of witnesses are there ready to testify against Jesus. However, Luke makes no mention of any nocturnal session of the Sanhedrin. The writer of John has Jesus him being taken to Annas and then being questioned by Caiaphas, with no mention of any council members or witnesses being present.

During the night the alleged messianic claims of Jesus are treated as a religious offence and then suddenly in the morning blasphemy conveniently metamorphoses into a political offence and anti-Roman revolutionary activity. No justification or explanation is offered for this sudden change of tactic.

Do you imagine that auxiliary Roman soldiers were posted at the city gates?

I imagine that there were troops stationed at various points to help prevent trouble from spiraling out of control if it starts. You know, pretty much like what you see today at large events. It's a fairly standard technique/tactic. And someone at the head of a large crowd would be rather hard to miss. So if he were on a watch list of troublemakers, someone that the Romans saw as a definite threat and not someone being hailed as a prophet and who was not preaching a message of insurrection, they would have taken action when He arrived so as to prevent potential bigger problems. That's pretty much S.O.P.

[rogue06]

Oh I was thinking more of this - which he likes to use

And his tendency to post gifs. We all post gifs now and again of course but rogue does it more than some.

umad2.gif
A word of advice. Learn what straw man means so that you do more than toss it around like a three year old who just heard daddy say a bad word.

[rogue06]

OK
Good Point.
Maybe the thread title was a form of 'click-bait'?

I agree with you, that folks who don't agree with LGBT lifestyles are just folks who disagree with LGBT, etc. The homophobics are nicely warmed up haters, then.
But it's true that the media and all do use the homophobe term with relish.
But I could say that I find it strange that some people would think that 'Liberals' are the only ones to use this term more widely.

This 'Leftists do this', 'Rightists do that', 'Liberals are those' stuff is so tightly tucked in to tribal groups that I wouldn't worry about how we scatter phobias and philias about.

Those on the right have their own issues but randomly accusing folks who disagree with them of being "racists," "homophobes," "Islamophobia," sexists"... isn't one of them. Those are almost exclusively used by the left as tactics to shut down a conversation

[Mountain Man]

Those on the right have their own issues but randomly accusing folks who disagree with them of being "racists," "homophobes," "Islamophobia," sexists"... isn't one of them. Those are almost exclusively used by the left as tactics to shut down a conversation

One of the left's "rockstar academics" recently proclaimed that it is racist for a white person to deny that he's a racist. This thread has a similar vibe to it, that it is homophobic to deny being homophobic.

[rogue06]

One of the left's "rockstar academics" recently proclaimed that it is racist for a white person to deny that he's a racist. This thread has a similar vibe to it, that it is homophobic to deny being homophobic.

That is the reaction I've experienced several times in this thread after I provide examples of the sort of extremist behavior that they like to claim is fabricated or at the most massively exaggerated.

[rogue06]

Are you saying that you are not a homophobe?

Are you saying that you think he is afraid of LGBTQ++?

[tabibito]

In which case, any quotes from Luke will be accepted by you.....

Ipso facto - no.

What bible do you use?
Please show me where the man Judas is written as 'Jude' in your Bible.

I said the name was translated differently in different places, not that the man was referred to by different translated names. The name of the author of Jude is, in Koine Greek, Judas. As to which Bibles I use: Maybe eight English language versions, two Japanese, cross checked against the Koine Greek: Byzantine Majority, UBS, and LXX texts.

You want hard evidence? About any foreign words or phrases that Galilean peasant workers might have had 2000 years ago?

"Apostle" for one - where the word applies to persons, it means "commissioner.' Also - balance of probabilities - terms from the trade tongue of any given era tend to be borrowed by the communities where it is used.

"Hard evidence?
That's strange imo, your whole religion is a Faith based upon amazing claims with no hard evidence."

That you believe so goes without saying. However, any effective faith is based on evidence seen and acknowledged.

Yes, I do believe that Jesus lived, had a mission (after the Baptist's) and that most of the Gospel of Mark is a true account (less the additions), but my belief about all this is based upon years of studying the Gospels, Early 1st century Palestine and the writings of some other authors.
Therefore some of my belief is based on the 'Balance of Probabilities' the rest on the 'Balance of Possibilities'.

Balance of probabilities is also important in assessing the Biblical record. However, where that is done, it is advisable to declare that to be the case. Declaring an assessment based on a balance of probabilities to be fact - I leave that to others.

Moving Forward....... >>>>> Given that we know Judas Iscariot's formal name, Judah Ben(or Bar) Simon....... please could you make suggestions as to how his name 'Iscariot' came to be?
I look forward to your suggestions.

Lexicons provide "of Kerioth." I have not found cause to question their findings.

[Sparko]

OK
Good Point.
Maybe the thread title was a form of 'click-bait'?

I agree with you, that folks who don't agree with LGBT lifestyles are just folks who disagree with LGBT, etc. The homophobics are nicely warmed up haters, then.
But it's true that the media and all do use the homophobe term with relish.
But I could say that I find it strange that some people would think that 'Liberals' are the only ones to use this term more widely.

This 'Leftists do this', 'Rightists do that', 'Liberals are those' stuff is so tightly tucked in to tribal groups that I wouldn't worry about how we scatter phobias and philias about.

Maybe I should call liberals, "Conserviphobes"

[tabibito]

One of the left's "rockstar academics" recently proclaimed that it is racist for a white person to deny that he's a racist. This thread has a similar vibe to it, that it is homophobic to deny being homophobic.

That attitude has been around for a long time. I believe it originated with white people. The counterpart to the idea, that "a man who claims to not be sexist is sexist," turned up a few years later (in my experience), about 30 years - for reasons unknown, it did not gain the same level of traction.
And now we have university students being taught that it is impossible for a member of a minority group to be ~ist.
Of course, if any of it is pointed out as transparent lunacy, the pointing out is declared proof that the person pointing it out is ~ist.
Also, in some sectors, the accusation is proof of guilt.

In sum: the witch-hunters have mutated, but the symptoms have not changed.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

That remark can only have been made by someone trying to bluff and bluster sans any supporting evidence.

If you make uniformed and sweeping generalisation expect them to be dismissed and/or ridiculed

And? How does that change anything?

It shows that Jesus was not the focus of that text. The text was concerned with the actions of Ananus who acted ultra vires [to wit the executions of James and others] and the consequences of those actions.

I wouldn't be in the least surprised if it was unflattering. What is the point? Has anyone ever argued that he was a Christian or even neutral? The fact is that for someone that you previously argued made no impact during His lifetime garnered two mentions by Josephus.

We do not know if Josephus made two references to Jesus. We do know that Origen reading Josephus at a later date notes that Josephus did not consider Jesus to be the Christ. It therefore is clear that Origen was reading a different text from the one that came down to us from the fourth century and to which Eusebius of Caesarea refers. Nor do we know if the name Jesus or the title the Christ was actually used by Josephus in his original text.

Do you have any idea of how being declared a great prophet and not preaching a message of insurrection has nothing to do with that?

Do you have any idea of the situation prevailing in Judaea in the first century? Given all your previous remarks it is patently apparent you do not.

Claiming, or being suspected of claiming, or being acclaimed as, the Jewish Messiah was a capital offence in Judaea under Roman law at that period. And according to the gospels that is the role Jesus adopted when he made his entry into Jerusalem as the prospective King of the Jews and the coming ruler of God’s people. That would immediately have alerted the authorities.

I was agreeing that the Romans employed spies and paid informers to help keep track of potential troublemakers. Virtually every government in existence has done so. And with all the buzz circulating around Jesus they would naturally have investigated him. But given he was making no revolutionary claims, not preaching a message of insurrection,

Do you not consider that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem as the Jewish Messianic King was neither provocative nor a significant political act?

How do you imagine the Jewish Kingdom of God was to be brought about? To create a theocracy the Romans had to be removed - one way or another. It is possible [as Maccoby has suggested] that Jesus believed this event would be accomplished with divine intervention, after all such similar events citing divine intervention were believed to have occurred in various Hebrew texts.

However, it is also possible that the real man was somewhat more "physical" in his desire to remove the Romans. Of course we can never know with absolute certainty because the texts do not provide adequate information apart from one or two brief references, but it cannot be entirely ruled out that a more dynamic approach would not be out of keeping given known recent events. In Judaism at this time politics and religion could not really be differentiated and the two were closely interrelated.

And if that were the case Pilate wouldn't have let Him go by sending Him to Herod.

That account only appears in Luke and you might care to read this.

“Something must be said about the incident in Luke of the dispatch of Christ to Herod Antipas as the ruler of Galilee. Pilate did this “because Christ came from the region of Herod’s power” in the words of Luke. There is a similar incident in Acts when the Procurator Felix asks Paul from what province he came. Neither Pilate nor Felix nor Gallio Achaea hesitated to deal with a defendant whose place of origin was “outside” their own province when the man was charged with a crime” inside” their province. Why then the question? A rather fine point of Roman criminal law is involved. The answer given by Mommsen was that strictly a man was supposed to be tried by the governor of the province of his permanent home, wherever the offense was committed, and that this was the custom of the earlier Principate. Later according to Mommsen, this usage was changed for practical reasons by a series of ordinances to allow trial in the province where the crime was committed; forum delicti replaces forum domicilii, as the lawyers say. Mommsen was rather unhappy about this notion of forum domicillii, which does not fit the nature of coercitio and cognicio extra ordinem. One does not expect the governor of the late Republic and early Principate, when faced by a malefactor to bother about the very fine question whether his imperium allowed him to deal with a man who was in but not of his province. But certain legal texts seemed to indicate this doctrine, Mommsen put it forward with reservations.

These texts were to a certain extent misinterpreted by Mommsen in his old age, when he wrote Römisches Strafrecht. The basic passage in the text of Celsus belonging to the time of Trajan or Hadrian,” non est dubium quin cuiuscumque est provinciae homo qui ex custodia producitur cognoscere debeat is qui ei provinciae praeest in qua agitur.” That is clear enough, and should give the doctrine of the earlier Principate. Here agitur clearly either means “where the man is active” as contrasted with cuiuscumque est provinciae or “where the affair takes place”.

[see A. N. Sherwin White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, pp. 28-29]

Intelligence agencies are constantly flooded with rumors and claims. If after investigating they don't find anything, they don't take any action. They simply can't act on every rumor. And given the Roman's reputation for ruthlessness, if they found anything, the odds that they would have let Him waltz on into Jerusalem where He could stir up serious trouble, are infinitesimally small.

I will note yet again that you do not fully understand the contemporary politio-religious and social situation. If we read the gospels all Jesus’ previous ministrations and preaching took place in small rural communities or isolated areas away from the scrutiny of the authorities. He actually instructs his followers to stay away from cities and the Gentiles.

Other Messianic claimants arose from among the rural populations in the countryside, precisely as [according to the gospels] did Jesus. Furthermore rural populations will often defend and protect those they perceive as the challengers and opponents to an oppressive regime. That of course in this period applied to Antipas as well, as in Judaea, the Romans.

I dare say a great deal more than you since handling such groups was what I did many years ago.

Ignoring the appeal to prestige and judging by your earlier remarks, I must disagree on your alleged level of expertise.

I cannot discount the possibility that some of Jesus' followers were rather aggressive.

Nor can you discount the possibility that Jesus was "aggressive" [to employ your word] either. Tendentious texts would of course gloss any possible likelihood of that.

There did seem to be some effort in getting Him to be more political and He had to warn those in His inner circle not to tell anyone He was the Messiah.

See my above remarks on politics and religion among the Jews at this period. Furthermore why did his followers have to keep silent? He later made an entry into Jerusalem in the role of the Messianic King.

Or did he believe that Passover [given its associations within Jewish tradition of liberation] was the critical juncture at which to display his Messianic status and his belief in the probability of divine intervention?

We can never know.

Given that as you say "holy men" were rampant during this time,

I have never written anything of the sort. I have stated that there were other Messianic claimants and insurgents prior to and after Jesus of Nazareth

it is highly doubtful that Jesus was the only one entering "at the head of a popular throng on the eve of a major Jewish religious festival."

How many messianic claimants do you imagine were in existence at any one time during this era? These individuals and their claims came and went over a protracted period.. There was not one arriving every week.

However, among the common people there was a deeply held belief in the imminent arrival of the Messiah and the coming of the Last Days through divine intervention. This was the contemporary eschatological context.

But as long as they weren't preaching insurrection the Romans wouldn't be all that interested.

The teachings of Jesus [even with the gospel gloss] carry a political message for the Jewish people to whom he was addressing those remarks. He was not preaching to Gentiles he was preaching to rural Jewish populations. And I repeat yet again that being acclaimed as, or claiming to be or being suspected of being the Jewish Messiah was a capital offence under Roman law in Judaea at this period.

None of which means that Pilate was an overly excessive micromanager personally reading every single report filed. Reports get screened, with only those deemed important making it all the way to the top. Do you think that the Director of the CIA, or the head of Britain's MI6 pores over every report and every rumor?

That is a ludicrous comparison.

You have an unfortunate habit of retrojecting modern societal institutions and behaviours back into the ancient past. The Praefectus was responsible for maintaining law and order across the province. Nor was he based in Jerusalem. His headquarters were in Caesarea where he resided for most of the year, only coming into Jerusalem at the times of Jewish religious festivals and bringing with him additional military reinforcements to counter any potential disturbances that might occur within the city.

The responsibility for day to day administrative affairs in the city of Jerusalem rested with the Temple authorities and the High Priest [who was an appointee of the Roman governor]. The Temple had its own security forces and there was a Roman auxiliary garrison permanently based in the Antonia that adjoined the Temple, and which could be called upon in cases of emergency.

Contrary to many popular preconceptions Pilate did not have immediate access to substantial military forces should any major incident occur. The nearest legions were based in Syria with the nearest legionary fortress being at Raphanea.

It is therefore highly likely that the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem would have been drawn to his attention, along with other reports, upon his own arrival in the city.

There was nothing in Christ's behavior that would have warranted reports on Him being brought to Pilate's attention.

Firstly that is an assumption premised on partisan texts and once again I repeat that being acclaimed as, or claiming to be or being suspected of being, the Jewish Messiah was a capital offence under Roman law in Judaea at this period.

And if we accept those partisan accounts in the gospels Jesus had made an entry into Jerusalem in the role of that Messianic king and that is how he would been regarded among the local population.

[rogue06]

Hard evidence?
That's strange imo, your whole religion is a Faith based upon amazing claims with no hard evidence.

You appear to be one of those who thinks that having faith equates to blind faith. It doesn't.

faith.jpg

You are confusing having faith for what is known as "blind faith" or blind acceptance. They are not synonyms.

An actual definition for the type of faith we talk about can be found in an older edition of Noah Webster's Dictionary

FAITH: 3. In theology, the assent of the mind or understanding to the truth of what God has revealed. Simple belief of the scriptures, of the being and perfections of God, and of the existence, character and doctrines of Christ, founded on the testimony of the sacred writers, is called historical or speculative faith; a faith little distinguished from the belief of the existence and achievements of Alexander or of Caesar.

The "blind faith" concept that atheists always assume that we mean is actually not biblical. Pistis, the Greek word translated as "faith," actually is defined as a conviction based on the facts. "Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6) We couldn't please God unless our minds can accurately discern the facts.

Our faith is based upon the evidence provided. Paul praised the people of Berea in northern Greece because they "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11). For looking at the evidence and seeing for themselves that it was true -- not accepting it blindly.

Paul even explicitly told us that we should check to see if something is true or not which is the exact opposite of blind faith.

Scripture Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:21

but test everything; hold fast what is good.

© Copyright Original Source

Likewise John gives very similar advice - to test things to see if they are true or not and not to blindly accept what you're told

Scripture Verse: 1 John 4:1

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

© Copyright Original Source

In fact Proverbs 14:15 demonstrates that the Bible argues directly against blind faith when it informs us that "The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps."

Christ offered evidence that He had Risen and didn't demand blind acceptance:

Scripture Verse: Luke 24:38-39

And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

© Copyright Original Source

And as Paul explains, the material body of the resurrected Son of God is what Christianity hinges on. If Christ has not really raised from the dead, then faith is in vain.

Scripture Verse: I Cor. 15:13-14

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

© Copyright Original Source

And as Peter puts it

Scripture Verse: II Peter 1:16

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

© Copyright Original Source

This is what we Christians mean by having faith. A faith that is rooted in reality and truth, and not blind faith.

[tabibito]

The teachings of Jesus [even with the gospel gloss] carry a political message for the Jewish people to whom he was addressing those remarks. He was not preaching to Gentiles he was preaching to rural Jewish populations. And I repeat yet again that being acclaimed as, or claiming to be or being suspected of being the Jewish Messiah was a capital offence under Roman law in Judaea at this period.

Yup, His political message was, Repent and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Surely something that would have had the Romans quaking in their boots.

Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
There was nothing in Christ's behavior that would have warranted reports on Him being brought to Pilate's attention.

Firstly that is an assumption premised on partisan texts and once again I repeat that being acclaimed as, or claiming to be or being suspected of being, the Jewish Messiah was a capital offence under Roman law in Judaea at this period.

And if we accept those partisan accounts in the gospels Jesus had made an entry into Jerusalem in the role of that Messianic king and that is how he would been regarded among the local population.

Last edited by Hypatia_Alexandria; Today, 10:53 PM.

Ah yes - when Jesus advised that people should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, it would surely have resulted in the Romans going to DEFCON 1. OTOH, maybe the Romans had some grasp of reality.

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